Either they make themselves even more dependent on platforms like Facebook “that dictate the editorial and business rules without claiming any editorial and financial accountability for independent journalism,” or, they need to reinvent themselves by dictating the terms of what and whom algorithms are being used to serve (Sundve, 2017).
For Sundve, the algorithmic potential lies in making journalism more personal, which is not to be mistaken for what we usually think of in terms of personalization. In my interview with him, he worries that, by using a concept such as personalization, which primarily belongs to the world of technology, one may too easily lose sight of what is important from a journalistic point of view. Though “journalism can be a lot of things [. . .] algorithms are primarily there to complement the human understanding of $\operatorname { i t } _ { \ l _ { 1 } } ^ { \dag \mathnormal { \gamma } }$ Sundve says (Interview 7, May 2016). A central theme in Sundve’s discussion of journalism and the role of algorithms is the fundamental difference between news organizations and technology companies such as Facebook and Google. He likes to compare journalism and algorithms by talking about both of them as optimization tasks. It helps, he says, when talking to programmers in the newsrooms to speak about journalism in these terms. Essentially, journalism is about “closing the gap between what people know and should know but also want to know,” he adds. In principle, this is an optimization task that can be solved both technically and editorially, but “What distinguishes us from a technology company is that we include that which we think you should know” (Interview 7, May 2016, emphasis added). As with Hansen and his critique of Zuckerberg’s “Californian code,” Sundve’s description of the diference between journalism and technology companies is essentially about legitimizing and sustaining the role of news media as powerful channels of information and communication. Where social media platforms fail, journalism succeeds.
Faced with the algorithm’s arrival, news media professionals have a choice: either develop a proactive stance, or reactively adapt to the new technological landscape. As is evident in most of the interviews, simply dismissing algorithms is no longer an option. As we will see later in this chapter, one of the most pervasive storylines when it comes to algorithms in news, concerns their potential threat to the informed democratic public. Yet, there are limits to how sustainable these arguments about so-called filter bubbles and echo chambers are (a topic to which we will return shortly), as the news organizations themselves are increasingly using algorithms to present the news. The challenge, therefore, is to balance critique with actual practice, to make algorithms good as it were, and to engage in practices of making them mater in the right way. In talking to diferent news media professionals, it became clear how the algorithm in part derives its value from what is already valued. That is, algorithms are judged, made sense of and explained with reference to existing journalistic values and professional ethics: Algorithms and objectivity, algorithms and newsworthiness, algorithms and informed citizens, and the list goes on.
Programming the News
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